Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Colloidal Silver Banned in Europe, Part III: An Exclusive Interview with Anders Sultan, Sweden’s Largest Colloidal Silver Manufacturer

This week I had the rare pleasure of interviewing Anders Sultan, Sweden’s largest colloidal silver manufacturer, maker of the Ionosil brand of colloidal silver.


In the interview below we discuss the surprise European ban on colloidal silver…a nifty loophole that savvy European colloidal silver manufacturers are using to beat the ban…why American colloidal silver-makers may not be able to use this same loophole should colloidal silver be banned here...the looming Codex Alimentarius threat to global health freedom and how it will affect colloidal silver users in the U.S…the ongoing environmentalist campaign to force the regulation and restriction of colloidal silver in the United States…the little-known U.S. war on silver dragees…differences between U.S. and EU food, water and supplement regulations as they relate to colloidal silver….and much more!


So kick back for the next five or ten minutes, get comfortable, put your feet up, and read what you’re not being told about colloidal silver through any other source of information…


Barwick: Anders, it’s great to talk to you. Our readers are interested in knowing about what’s going on with colloidal silver in Europe. Can you tell me a bit about the EU colloidal silver ban?


Sultan: January first 2010 marked the day when colloidal silver was effectively banned as a food supplement in the European market.


Barwick: A lot of people here in the U.S. don’t believe the ban is real. They say they can’t find any information about it on the internet, and they note that some European vendors are still selling colloidal silver on their web sites.


Sultan: The fact that silver was not on the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) list of approved minerals in food supplements was known by only a few well initiated manufacturers. Most didn’t even know what was happening, and apparently some still don’t.


Barwick: Tell me more about this EFSA list.


Sultan: The EFSA has a list of approved food supplement ingredients, called the Positive List, and a list of unapproved food supplement ingredients. Colloidal silver was on the unapproved list, which is the list of food supplement ingredients that can no longer be legally sold in the EU as of January 1, 2010.


Any ingredient on that list was required to submit detailed and costly scientific and medical studies in order to be moved to the Positive List. Most colloidal silver manufacturers simply missed it. The lists were not that well publicized.


Barwick: Didn’t some colloidal silver manufacturers know about it, and if so, why didn’t they submit studies in support of their colloidal silver product?


Sultan: Yes, of course. Some knew about it. Many of these manufacturers simply couldn’t afford to do the safety, efficacy and bioavailability studies, which can cost in the range of $120,000 apiece.


Others, including big colloidal silver companies like Natural-Immunogenics, say they couldn’t get any cooperation from the EFSA. They couldn’t get the EFSA to provide the study protocols.


In short, it appears to me, and to other observers, that the EFSA had set out to make it extremely hard to get silver approved. The EFSA had already indicated that, because of undefined "safety issues" they would not automatically approve a nano-particle based colloidal silver product even if it were able to submit good bioavailability data.


Barwick: So the European Food Safety Authority seems to have had it out for colloidal silver products. They didn’t want to see such products make the Positive List. Is that your take on the matter?


Sultan: Correct. As you know, colloidal silver is probably first on Big Pharma's list of natural alternatives to get rid of. The structure of the EU makes it ridiculously easy for the pharmaceutical giants to "influence" a few key people and produce big results throughout Europe.


Big Pharma has obviously been successful this round and they have been at it for a while now. The European Food Supplement Directive, FSD 2002/46/EC, is nothing but a Big Pharma job which effectively limits the consumer’s access to nutrients in the form of minerals and vitamins.


This directive serves as a model for the WHO Codex Alimentarius that, through the process of “harmonization” of food supplement laws, will soon be forced onto US consumers, whether they want it or not.


Note that besides silver, other important minerals such as vanadium and the macro-mineral sulfur were also on the unapproved list, and have been banned along with a hundred or so other nutritional supplement ingredients.


Barwick: How many nutritional supplements does this affect?


Sultan: There’s probably a thousand or more different nutritional supplements using these ingredients that are now completely illegal to sell.


Barwick: And these aren’t just obscure minerals and vitamins that have been banned, right?


Sultan: Not at all. For example, as I mentioned, the macro mineral sulfur is on the banned list. The fact that the macro mineral sulfur is now illegal to sell is incomprehensible!


A lesser known trace element may be easy for an authority to state that it is not used in the body -- just like they play the game with silver by claiming it’s not an essential nutrient. But to ban a macro mineral is just plain criminal and would be like banning calcium or magnesium.


Sulfur is an essential macro mineral used for such various tasks as creating and maintaining skin, nails, hair, bone, muscles etc and is involved in the disulfide bonds that create 3D-structure in the molecules. Without sulfur you would most likely be spending your days as a 2-dimensional creature flat on the floor!


Barwick: Where can people go to learn more about the ban on silver?


Sultan: The EFSA is supposed to have this information published publicly on the internet. But the internet link describing in detail the situation with colloidal silver ends up in an “http 404 - file not found” message. I personally remarked to EFSA on this two times a couple of months ago -- without any result. They never fixed the broken link. They obviously don’t want people to find out what’s been going on behind the scenes.


Barwick: Why are they doing this?


Sultan: Big Pharma hates silver. Pure and simple. It’s too competitive. It allows the little guy a way of taking care of infectious illness without using pharmaceutical drugs.


On the broader level, Big Pharma and the ruling elite know extremely well that the less nutrition a consumer gets his hands on, the more prone he is to become malnourished and end up at a doctor's office with symptoms of some disease that requires prescription drugs.


Doctors are not educated in diagnosing disease as a result of malnourishment, which is the cause of more and more forms of illness and disease today. This in turn generates more and more revenue for Big Pharma.

It was early in the twentieth century that the owners of today’s multinational drug companies started to understand that the less nutrition you give to people the likelier they are to develop some form of disease that would require medication.


They also had control over companies that worked with the newly developed chemical fertilizers and they soon recognized the fact that if sulfur and other crucial elements were removed from the fertilizer products, food would not be as nutritious as before and people would develop symptoms of disease more often.


Again, this would generate more revenue to the pharmaceutical companies. As a result, sulfur as well as most other elements were removed from most of the fertilizer products leaving only three minerals -- nitrate, phosphorous and potassium, NPK.


Nature doesn’t work with three elements only. In order for crop growth to take place the way it was designed to, the crops need access to small amounts of natures 90+ elements.


These elements were once available in the soil and are continuously consumed by the crops growing in the soil. But since none of these elements are returned to the soil when fertilized with NPK, the soil itself ends up totally devoid of all of these elements in only about 10 years of farming.


Barwick: What’s the solution?


Sultan: The solution to the problem can be found in the ocean. You see, what isn’t consumed by the crops is transported through the process of erosion out into the ocean, where it can now be found as an ionic mixture that can actually be used to fertilize the soil or even be used as a cost effective and easily absorbable ionic food supplement.


An American company called Ocean Grown in Florida has developed a process which extracts natures 90+ elements out of the ocean so that it may be used to remineralize the soil. You can learn more at www.oceangrown.com.


Barwick: Back to the silver ban. What about other companies? Didn’t anybody try to get their products listed on the Positive List?


Sultan: Yes. I mentioned Natural-Immunogenics earlier. They’re an American colloidal silver manufacturer. But they sell their product on the European market as well. They tried to get their product approved, but they had unfortunately made the mistake of trying to convince EFSA that their product is a nano-particulate product when in reality they have a 99 percent ionic product.


In my opinion, it would have been better to remain with the ionic story, as the safety data for ionic silver is much more comprehensive and does not automatically raise red flags with the authorities. At any rate, from what I can gather Natural-Immunogenics got no cooperation from the EFSA, and were never able to complete their bioavailability study.

Barwick: So what are colloidal silver manufacturers going to do?

Sultan: The ban on silver has forced European vendors to find new ways of classifying the product. One obvious and appropriate classification is as a “water disinfectant” product.


Barwick: Why?


Sultan: Because it’s not considered to be a food supplement if it’s being used as a water disinfectant. You’re using it for water purification, rather than for mineral supplementation.


Since a typical 10 ppm colloidal silver solution is 99.999% water and only 0.001% silver, there are numerous other uses for a product like this.


For example, in regards to my own company, Ion Silver, we decided it wasn't worth the cost and effort to try to keep our colloidal silver product as a food supplement. We knew the deck has been stacked against colloidal silver manufacturers from the start. So we chose to reclassify the product as a water disinfectant instead, and move away from the stupid restraining rules surrounding food supplements.


We had built the colloidal silver market here in Sweden, and we knew that as long as we could keep the product legal somehow, people would continue to use it. What’s more, by re-classifying it as a water disinfectant, we can finally legally claim that the product is capable of killing bacteria, virus, fungus and one celled parasites - without risking spending a year in prison for making claims.


Barwick: So re-labeling your product as a “water disinfectant” is basically a loophole that allows you to continue selling colloidal silver legally, as long as you sell don’t tell people how to use it for food supplement purposes?


Sultan: Yes. That’s right. Most health food stores in Sweden already sell products used for water purification and have no problem with continuing to carry our colloidal silver product, called Ionosil, now that we’ve reclassified it as a water disinfectant.


In reality, the product is identical to what we had registered as a food supplement for the past nine years. It is only the label that has changed ever so slightly.


Of course, silver has been used for water purification purposes ever since king Cyrus boiled all his water and stored it in silver lined vessels while traveling around and fighting various wars.


Our product, Ionosil, is registered with the Swedish chemical authorities. The authorities keep a watchful eye on silver nitrate based products, but had no problem with a product that is composed of 99.999 percent water and only 0.001 percent pure silver with no nitric acid component -- as in silver nitrate.


Barwick: All of this begs the obvious question of how long do you think the EU will allow that loophole to remain open? Put another way, what makes you confident that colloidal silver will continue to be legally sold as a “water disinfectant”?


Sultan: There’s a long history of precedent. In other words, silver has been sold and used here as a water disinfectant for a long time.


For example, for many years there have been highly concentrated silver nitrate based products on the European market. These are for disinfecting the water kept in the fresh water tank in marine vessels. You can give your readers this web site link to see one great example of this.


Ever since the 1950s large ships have been equipped with silver-based water purification systems. In fact, there are tens of thousands of large ships around the world that utilize this technology. One of the pioneers and largest manufacturers of this technology is the Swedish company Jowa. You can see an excerpt from their product description at this web site link.


Jowa also have a water purification system that sterilizes the water through the use of silver ions, much like the ones your little colloidal silver generators produce. This product, called Jowa AG-S, has made Sweden world-famous in the shipping industry. This sterilization method provides long-term protection and is a suitable method for long-term storage of drinking water. Since its introduction in 1970, this unit has been installed in thousands of ships.


Incidentally, sterilizing water with the help of silver is an old and well-proven method that goes all the way back to antiquity. It is completely harmless to humans and animals and the silver ions do not change the taste or smell of the water.


The bottom line is that Europe has a long tradition of using silver as a water disinfectant. That’s why I’m not too worried about the loophole being closed. I believe we’ll be able to sell colloidal silver as a “water disinfectant” for a long time into the future.


Barwick: That’s heartening to know. But here in the U.S., I’m not so sure we could get away with simply re-labeling our colloidal silver products as “water disinfectants” should the U.S. start harmonizing its food supplement laws with the EU, in accord with the ongoing Codex Alimentarius process.


My deepest suspicion is that the various environmental groups that have been working so hard to have silver regulated as an environmental toxin would take grave issue with that tactic. They’d see the potential for millions of people to start using colloidal silver for water disinfectant purposes, and they’d likely pressure our Environmental Protection Agency to take regulatory action to close that loophole. I hope not. But I suspect that’s what would happen. In fact, I suspect that’s actually why the environmentalists are working so hard to have silver regulated.


Sultan: As you know, in your country NASA has equipped its space shuttles with a silver-based water purification system. This helps purify all water circulated on the space flights -- even urine! It’s all re-used. NASA researched 23 different methods of water purification and finally chose a silver water filter system for recycling and disinfecting water aboard the space shuttles. So maybe that’s some kind of precedent you could capitalize on.


Barwick: Perhaps. But space-based use of silver as a water disinfectant is pretty miniscule, and the argument can’t be made that it poses a threat to earth’s environment. So I’m not sure that precedent is going to stop the EPA from attempting to regulate silver more stringently as an environmental toxin or “pesticide” -- particularly if the environmental groups push them harder to do so.


The environmentalists here seem pretty dead-set on hyper-regulating all silver-based products and restricting their usage. And of course, as one well-known natural health journalist has recently pointed out in an article published on our blog, some of the very environmental groups fighting to regulate silver as a threat to the environment have been known to take huge sums of money from Big Pharma.


Once our food supplement laws are harmonized with EU food supplement laws under the Codex Alimentarius process, and colloidal silver is banned here, too, as it is in Europe, it would be strange to see colloidal silver still available as a “water disinfectant.” But if that’s the only way U.S. manufacturers could sell it, I suppose they’ll have to give it a try and see whether or not the bureaucrats let them get away with it.


Sultan: It’s what works here.


Barwick: In Sweden, don’t you have a bureaucracy that’s similar to our Environmental Protection Agency? As you know, here in the U.S. various environmental groups are constantly complaining about the alleged threat of silver entering the public waterways, and warning that it could kill “ecologically sensitive microorganisms” that the environment depends upon.


They recently worked to stop Samsung Corporation, for example, from selling their Silver Care washing machine, which injected very small amounts of ionic silver into the rinse cycle, as a means of keeping clothing and other fabrics fresher and bacteria free after washing. They claimed they were afraid the silver would find its way back into the environment and harm essential microbes.


Are you saying there are no environmental agencies in Sweden, or in other European countries, that have been making noises about restricting silver usage in order to “protect the environment.”


Sultan: Oh we definitely have that same problem over here and stopping silver sure looks like part of a global hidden agenda – it simply hasn’t surfaced everywhere yet.


We have had our share of people -- even people calling themselves scientists -- using unsubstantiated claims saying silver is toxic and would color people gray, damage internal organs, be detrimental to the environment and create antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.


We on the other hand have pointed at studies in both Iran and India demonstrating the fact that silver ions or silver nano-particles added to antibiotics actually solve the problems associated with resistant strains of bacteria.


We also had a study conducted on our Ionosil product that proves it is extremely effective on MRSA, which of course is a highly antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria. We even got a testimonial from a woman who contracted MRSA, and struggled with dual forms of antibiotics for three months with no improvement. But once she started using our product internally and topically, the MRSA was gone within 24 hours.


Barwick: Yes, I’m aware of colloidal silver’s very profound effectiveness against MRSA. There’s a web site called Colloidal Silver Cures MRSA which discusses the various studies proving this. Yet here in the U.S., the claim from the orthodox medical groups is that colloidal silver will actually cause antibiotic resistance to develop.


Sultan: Same in Sweden. In 2007, one doctor and “scientist” in Stockholm, named Asa Melhus, stated publicly that the increased use of silver would create a lot of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. The media was full of her accusations that silver based products would create a flood of silver-resistant bacteria that would at the same time be antibiotic-resistant.


Danish scientists on the other hand, did a thorough follow-up on all their 400 cataloged antibiotic-resistant strains and found that not a single one of these bacterial strains were resistant to silver. So it turns out that silver would actually be the answer needed to solve the problems they’re having with drug-resistant bacterial strains. You can read more about this in a Danish magazine at this web site: http://ing.dk/artikel/83533 (use Google translate).


This doctor was later shown to have a personal interest in getting rid of silver since she was the owner of a patent on an anti-infective wound dressing based on Xylitol (birch sugar). See http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2005058381.


This woman was so out of it that she later accused our product of giving Rosemary Jacobs argyria back in the 1950’s. She actually says so in a videotaped lecture given to other doctors. Our product, of course, wasn’t even introduced to the market until 2001, a full 51 years after Rosemary contracted argyria from a medication prescribed by her doctor.


Most people, even scientists, have a hard time understanding the fact that there’s a huge difference between toxic silver salts and non-toxic silver in the form of colloidal silver for instance. They just claim it’s all the same thing – which of course it isn’t.


They also claim silver is a “heavy metal” – not taking into account that so is iron, zinc and copper – which of course are minerals we cannot live without. This way of trying to scare people is most certainly due to the underlying monetary self-interest some people have in seeing silver removed from the market so their own patented drug products can be sold successfully.


By the way, most modern chemists want to move away from the term “heavy metal” as it doesn’t say anything about the mineral per say. After all, most minerals are classified as “heavy” because of their atomic weight. One should instead focus on whether or not the mineral is actually toxic. Pure silver is non-toxic. Silver salts are toxic, as are most other mineral salts.


We have shown, for example, that using our product in a responsible manner could never cause argyria as the total intake never exceeds the World Health Organization’s NOAEL (Non Observed Adverse Effect Level), which is set to 10 grams of ingested silver over a lifetime.


Taking six teaspoons of our 10 ppm product each and every day for eighty years still doesn’t exceed NOAEL. What’s more, NOAEL doesn’t even take into account the fact that 90-99 percent of the consumed silver is excreted from the body usually within 24 hours due to the homeostatic work performed by the body’s metallo proteins.


By the way, Samsung’s Silver Care washing machine was actually criticized by environmentalists in Sweden way back in 2006, but they never managed to ban it.


Steve, I have never quite understood the hoopla created by these environment organizations. Silver is a naturally occurring non-toxic mineral created by nature and in my sober view, it is only common sense that it can easily be returned to Mother Nature, in what amounts to doses corresponding to micrograms, without creating a havoc.


As you know, once released back into the environment silver ions bind to just about everything organic and are rendered inert and do not have any reactive capability left.


It was first after reading your much appreciated blog post about how Big Pharma have influenced environmental groups into attacking a normal occurring mineral like silver, that I got the whole picture.


In my view these environmental groups should instead be going after the toxic waste Big Pharma spreads around itself! I guess the environmentalists will have a hard time finding funding from Big Pharma for that, though!


Barwick: Yes, we’ve frequently pointed out that the environmentalists are operating under a double standard. They attack silver by claiming that unrestricted silver usage by consumers has the “potential” to someday cause a buildup of silver in our waterways. So they want silver usage severely restricted, even banned, based on this unproven “potential.”


Yet at the same time numerous investigative reports published in the U.S. media have demonstrated that our waterways are already being heavily polluted with tons of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs, and that dozens of U.S. cities are showing higher and higher levels of these drugs in the public water supply. Yet the environmentalists don’t utter a peep about this very real threat.


In short, they go after the non-existent threat to the environment posed by silver, but ignore the very real threat to the environment and to millions of people being posed by the dumping of pharmaceutical drugs in our waterways by Big Pharma.


Sultan: That’s certainly a dichotomy. And talking about dichotomies, you’ll probably find it interesting to know that even though silver has been banned from being used as a food supplement here in Europe, it is actually still allowed in certain foods.


Barwick: You’re kidding me?


Sultan: Nope. It’s true. In fact, silver in food has its own E-number, which is E 174. It’s approved in quantum satis, which means in practically unlimited amounts, as long as it’s used in those popular little silver cake and pastry decoration balls purchased in supermarkets. You’ve seen them, haven’t you?


Barwick: Yes, as a kid, I’ve eaten many of them. My mom decorated cakes for a living off and on, and she was always putting those little silver balls on cakes and cookies and pastries, and what not. Here in the U.S. those little silver balls are called silver dragees, and they were very popular for decades.


Sultan: Well, here in Europe one of those tiny silver balls contains the equivalent of 30 ml of 10 ppm colloidal silver – that’s 300 micro grams per decoration ball. Two year old kids usually have ten or more of these on a piece of birthday cake. That is the same as drinking 300 ml of a 10 ppm colloidal silver product.


Barwick: Here in the U.S. some money-grubbing environmental lawyer has been running around the country suing the various manufacturers of those little silver dragees. This pathetic excuse for a lawyer claims that because the silver dragees actually have real metallic silver in them, they’re toxic.


He’s even managed to get laws passed to pull the products from the market in some states, like California. What’s more, I’m told he even sued the Martha Stewart organization, and many major food and cake decorating supply companies. And it has scared cake, cookie and pastries vendors in other states from selling the little silver balls.


Some cake and pastry supply companies still get away with selling them by labeling them as being “for decorative purposes only.” But this lawyer has been suing them anyway, claiming that the “decorative purposes” label is just a ruse – a loophole that needs to be closed because the cake companies obviously know the silver balls are being eaten by people, even though they are labeled as decorative items.


In fact, this lawyer even admits openly that he’s never found anyone who has been harmed from consuming the little silver dragees. Nevertheless, he’s won some huge court victories by claiming silver is a toxic metal.


According to news reports, he uses a “protect the children” approach, which of course, gains him great sympathy from juries even though these little silver balls have been consumed by kids and adults alike for decades here in the U.S. and to my knowledge there’s never been a single person harmed by eating them.


Sultan: Here in the EU, they don’t seem to worry about kids eating those little silver cake decorations. In the EU document at this link you can read the following: E 174 (Silver) is used to decorate cakes, candies, and other sweets, and Annex IV of Directive 94/36 allows unlimited use (quantum satis) of this colourant in foods. The standards for purity regarding E 174 (Silver) are reported in EC Directive 94/45 of the 26 July 1995 Commission, which deals with colourants that can be used in foods. The Directive notes that silver presents as a powder composed of finely ground particles of the metal. The metal can also be transformed into ultra-thin sheets or films.


Barwick: Well, again, that’s quite amazing. At least in this area of the world, we obviously have a bit more bureaucratic meddling over silver going on than you do. On the other hand, the entire EU just banned silver and many other minerals and nutrient ingredients in nutritional supplements. So I guess it’s a mixed bag all over the world at this point, huh? Silver is being attacked from a variety of angles.


Sultan: Well, it just goes to show that you never know where the bureaucrats are going to strike next. Sometimes it seems there’s just no rhyme or reason to it.


Barwick: Have you ever had any run-ins with the Swedish health authorities over your Ionosil colloidal silver product?


Sultan: We were actually threatened by the Swedish FDA back in 2007. They said that if we didn't delete the testimonials we had on our website, we would face one year in prison.


But instead of deleting them, we moved them to another web site, much to their dismay. You can now read these testimonials – over 40 pages worth on colloidal silver and MSM -- at the web site of a very popular Swedish alternative health magazine which you can view at this link. Of course, the web site is in Swedish, but your readers can use Google to translate it, if they care to check it out.


Barwick: We have trouble with testimonials here, too. Our FDA basically says they’re unreliable and therefore potentially misleading. And you’re not supposed to use them in advertising or labeling. But of course some colloidal silver vendors still do, and every now and then the FDA issues threatening letters telling vendors to clean up their web sites or face stiff regulatory action.


To your knowledge, are the laws in Sweden for selling food supplements much different than U.S. laws?


Sultan: In Sweden, you can’t legally claim that a food supplement has any benefit at all. Eat it and be happy. But if you sell it, keep your mouth shut. You’re not supposed to tell the public of any benefit.


When we had our testimonials on our company web site, we had basically integrated them into our marketing, and of course we could have been punished quite severely for doing that.


In retaliation for not deleting the testimonials altogether, as we’d been ordered to do, Swedish authorities staged a nasty news story that aired on the Swedish national news in November 2007. This was on a Sunday evening, when as many people as possible were watching television. They erroneously claimed our product would cause argyria and turn people gray. They also claimed it would damage people’s internal organs, create antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria and to top it off, they claimed our product is a threat to the environment!


Of course, their claims were laughable. But we lost about 30% of our sales from the assault. Nobody from the authorities contacted us to ask anything before airing the story. We could have easily proven them wrong, but nobody wanted to hear our side of the story first. They just let loose with both barrels. The media is obviously controlled by the same people who benefited from assaulting us and our product.

However, after a lot of written communication with the authorities, we finally got an apology from one of the people at the food side of the Swedish FDA. She admitted they had no knowledge of how much silver was required to give a person argyria, and she apologized for the situation, admitting they should have spoken of silver in general rather than focusing on our product.


But…they wouldn't go public with the apology. No sir. Their senior lawyer told us they had no intent of doing that. Your readers can follow much of the story on our web site. But of course it’s in Swedish so they’ll have to use Google to translate the page. It’s actually quite understandable.

Between that time and now we have fought our way back and regained a lot of our market share by communicating lots of facts and data on our web site. And we’ve more or less doubled our sales.


We also reported these authorities to another Swedish authority called JK (i.e., the Chanselor of Justice). Their job is to monitor the other authorities. We sued the Swedish state and the FDA for the economic loss it caused us, but the number of cases this authority has to handle is really high, so it is not until now in January 2010 that they have promised to go through it and give us a ruling.


Barwick: It will be quite interesting to see what comes of it.


Sultan: Indeed it will.


Barwick: Anders, what can food supplement manufacturers do now that silver has been banned in food supplements in the EU, and may well be banned in the U.S. once our supplement laws are harmonized with EU laws through the Codex Alimentarius process?


Sultan: I suggest colloidal silver manufacturers from both the EU and the U.S., as well as other interested parties, should team up together and give these dark forces a good fight. We should all work together to submit a proper dossier to the EFSA on behalf of silver, and get it removed from the banned list and placed on the Positive List where it belongs.


After all, we all have a lot to gain from this. If we could get silver placed back onto the Positive List, then European colloidal silver manufacturers could once again legally sell it as a food supplement. American colloidal silver manufacturers could once again legally sell it here as a food supplement, also.


But perhaps most importantly of all, by helping us get silver back onto the EFSA Positive List, U.S. colloidal silver manufacturers would be protected from seeing their product banned in the U.S. through the Codex Alimentarius process.


Since the goal of Codex is to “harmonize” U.S. food supplement laws with EU food supplement laws, the smartest thing in the world to do right now would be to make sure EU food supplement laws allow the legal sale of colloidal silver.


Now that the Alliance for Natural Health has opened up offices in the U.S., one good idea would be for everyone in the U.S. and EU to work together with them in achieving this goal. After all, in the letter you printed from the Alliance for Natural Health on your Colloidal Silver Secrets blog, they stated that they’re very interested in helping support a manufacturer with a dossier application for silver.


This is the perfect opportunity, then, for EU and US colloidal silver manufacturers to come together on this issue and work as one unit.


The bottom line is that since we all have a common interest in this fight, and we all stand to benefit from working together, then we ought to do it. We could team up and share the costs to make a joint application for reinstating colloidal silver on the Positive List, which is to say, the list of approved food supplement ingredients.


Again, if we do this in Europe now, colloidal silver will be protected in the U.S. from being banned through the Codex Alimentarius process.


Barwick: Anders, I think that’s a great idea. If there are any U.S. or European colloidal silver manufacturers reading this who might be interested in collaborating with you on this idea, how can they get in touch with you?


Sultan: They can contact me by emailing me at savesilver@ion-silver.com.


Barwick: Anders, I really appreciate your taking the time out of your busy day to speak with us. Thanks so much for your candid and very enlightening answers.

Sultan: You’re welcome. It’s been my pleasure.


Helpful Links:


Colloidal Silver Secrets blog

Colloidal Silver Kills Viruses

Colloidal Silver Cures MRSA

Make Your Own Colloidal Silver

The Colloidal Silver Secrets Video

The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual

The New Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator

Secrets of Natural Healing blog

Unique Nutritional Supplements

The Immune Manual

Underground Publications that Could Save Your Life

The Authoritative Guide to Vaccine Legal Exemptions

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Colloidal Silver Banned in Europe, Part II

A rash of European laws are being foisted on Europe's 500 million strong population through undemocratic means, by unelected bureaucrats in the European institutions, which attempt to sideline natural treatments once and for all.”

-- Dr Robert Verkerk

According to the international health freedom organization Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), colloidal silver has now been banned throughout the European Union.

This is a major defeat for global colloidal silver community and it may well ultimately spell disaster for North American colloidal silver users too, particularly as moves to “harmonize” North American food supplement regulations with European Union regulations continue.

A Brief Overview of the Global Battle Against Colloidal Silver

There are moves all round the world, not just in Europe, to make it difficult to sell silver as a food supplement because it directly competes with the antibiotic market.”

-- Meleni Aldridge, Executive Coordinator, Alliance for Natural Health Int’l

I’ll cover the European Union ban on colloidal silver in just a moment. But first, let me give you a brief overview of the global battle now raging against colloidal silver.

I’ve been warning for years that the battle to ban colloidal silver is, in reality, a worldwide battle, with anti-colloidal silver forces operating on multiple fronts, in multiple countries, using a variety of political bullying and media propaganda tactics in attempts to ultimately deprive consumers of their rights to use the world’s most powerful natural antibiotic.

Here in the U.S., the FDA tried to ban colloidal silver throughout the 1990’s, at the behest of the major pharmaceutical companies. After spirited consumer opposition, they finally admitting in June 1999 that they could find no legitimate reason to ban its sale.

Instead, they implemented their infamous “Final Ruling” on colloidal silver, stating that it was not considered to be “safe or effective” for treating any disease or condition, and therefore no health claims could be made for it in advertising or on product labeling.

Afterwards the FDA embarked on a campaign to prevent colloidal silver manufacturers and vendors from telling the public about the powerful, infection-fighting qualities of the substance, by issuing numerous threats in the form of official regulatory warnings against offending colloidal silver vendors.

Pseudo-medical proxy groups like Quackwatch and a number of others who shill for the FDA and AMA, have also been used to publicly denigrate colloidal silver. And sensationalistic television and print media campaigns have been launched to scare the public into believing colloidal silver is “unsafe,” “toxic” or otherwise harmful.

Then, in 2009 a coalition of radical environmental groups operating globally with funding from several major pharmaceutical companies picked up the anti-colloidal silver baton and sued the Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to force them to regulate silver-based products – including colloidal silver – as “pesticides” and ban them until manufacturers could prove their products posed no threat to “ecologically sensitive microorganisms” in the environment.

This tactic unleashed a flood of opposition from thousands of angry colloidal silver users who called, faxed, emailed and wrote the EPA, expressing their displeasure at the proposed regulations. This massive outpouring of citizen displeasure appears to have at least temporarily forced the EPA to back down.

The EPA has been tight-lipped since that time, neither confirming nor denying whether or not their classification of silver as a “pesticide” will ultimately affect dietary colloidal silver supplements.

(Side note: When I recently spoke with EPA’s Director of the Office of Science and Coordination, Joseph Bailey, and point blank asked him whether or not the EPA intended to regulate colloidal silver, he said “Probably not, because it’s a nutritional supplement and it’s not being used for pesticidal purposes.” Knowing that “pesticidal” is the EPA’s euphemism for “anti-microbial” in regards to all matters concerning silver, I then said, “But we all know colloidal silver is sold and used for the specific purpose of killing microbes.” He replied, “Under those circumstances, then, I suppose we’d have to regulate it.”)

Interestingly enough, the environmental groups attempting to force the EPA to more stringently enforce their “pesticide” laws against silver-based products have in the interim repeatedly called for colloidal silver to be banned as an environmental toxin and a danger to human health and well-being.

What’s more, all of this has coincided with the advent of the global “Swine Flu” threat, which saw the FDA step in to repeatedly threaten colloidal silver vendors against telling consumers that colloidal silver is effective against viruses by accusing them of committing consumer fraud if they do.

Those are the kind of strong-arm tactics being used here in the U.S. to keep colloidal silver out of the hands of consumers, and to keep consumers in the dark regarding its remarkable, infection-fighting qualities.

And of course, it’s all done for the protection of the major global pharmaceutical companies who want no competition from natural products against their basically useless and potentially dangerous flu drugs, and potentially deadly vaccines.

In Australia, the same kind of thing is happening.

The Australian Therapeutic Goods Agency (TGA) ruled back in 2002 that there were “no legitimate medical uses for colloidal silver and no evidence to support its marketing claims.” They concluded that "efforts should be made to curb the illegal availability of colloidal silver products, which is a significant public health issue."

The Australian TGA has now apparently banned all colloidal silver products from being sold in Australia if the manufacturer or vendor makes health claims.

Indeed, the only exclusion allowing legal colloidal silver sales in Australia is if the product is sold for use as a “water disinfectant” and if no claims whatsoever are made for it.

That of course hasn’t stopped some Australian colloidal silver vendors from illegally marketing their product as an oral nutritional supplement and infection-fighting agent. Nevertheless, the handwriting is on the wall, and the laws are in place in Australia for a complete ban.

I am told the same thing is happening in New Zealand, South Africa and other countries.

Even our neighbors to the north are not immune. In 2007 Canada’s Health Canada agency began issuing “unauthorized product” warnings against colloidal silver vendors, and simultaneously began soliciting “adverse reaction reports” against specific colloidal silver products.

Of course, as we’ve publicly noted, the Canadian health authorities have no evidence whatsoever that colloidal silver products are unsafe or harmful. They are simply trying to manufacture evidence by goading their citizens into making adverse reaction reports, apparently as a means of justifying planned regulatory actions against colloidal silver manufacturers in the future.

The European Ban on Colloidal Silver

Okay. Here’s the scoop on the European ban on colloidal silver, which took effect on January 1, 2010.

The story actually begins back in 2003. That’s when the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) brought into force their infamous Food Supplements Directive (2002/46/EC) (FSD), which dramatically limited the number of types of nutrients that could be sold throughout the 27 member nations of the European Union encompassing most of western Europe and some eastern European nations.

This action essentially removed several hundred nutrient ingredients -- including silver – from the marketplace in one fell swoop, making it illegal to sell thousands of different food supplement products containing those ingredients.

Fortunately, the Directive had a derogation clause under Article 4(6) that allowed unapproved nutrient types that were already on the market at the time the Directive came into force in 2003 to continue to be sold until the end of the derogation phase on 31 December 2009.

Because of the derogation clause, a complete ban on thousands of nutritional supplement products containing unapproved ingredients – including colloidal silver -- was temporarily forestalled.

False Sense of Security

Unfortunately, the extra time granted by the derogation clause apparently gave European nutritional supplement manufacturers and vendors a false sense of security.

Nutrient manufacturers throughout Europe were supposed to use the extra time to conduct clinical studies and submit dossiers to the European Food Safety Authority demonstrating the safety, efficacy and bioavailability of the unapproved ingredients being used in their products, in accord with the EFSA’s stringent regulatory requirements.

Unfortunately, many European nutritional supplement manufacturers were either completely unaware of the requirements to conduct safety, efficacy and bioavailability studies, and submit the results to the EFSA, or they could not afford the expensive and time-consuming scientific testing required.

In the end, they blissfully continued manufacturing and selling products containing the unapproved ingredients, without submitting the proof demanded by the EFSA.

In some cases, some colloidal silver manufacturers who admit to having known all along about the regulations have personally complained to me that the required clinical studies were so onerous, stringent and costly that they simply could not be met.

Others have complained to me they could not obtain the proper study protocols from the EFSA. They felt it was ridiculous of the EFSA to require studies costing as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars, but refuse to spell out the protocols for acceptable results.

Some EU colloidal silver manufacturers have even complained that it appeared the regulatory requirements were purposefully designed to assure that as few unapproved ingredients as possible could survive the approval process.

Regulatory Roadblocks

Silver – the primary active ingredients in colloidal silver -- was apparently one of those unapproved ingredients the European health authorities wanted to keep off the market at any cost. As Anders Sultan, owner of Sweden’s largest colloidal silver manufacturing firm Ion Silver recently told me:

“Conducting a bioavailability study was a must in order to have even a slim chance of keeping an unapproved ingredient like silver on the market.

A study like this is basically the same as a Phase I drug study, costing in the range of $120,000 U.S. dollars or more.

This study wouldn’t be all that’s required, as it only addresses bioavailability. The EFSA also requires proof of safety and efficacy.

So you can see that many hundreds of thousands of dollars in testing would have to be spent, and even after that there was no guarantee the EFSA would approve the ingredient for use in nutritional supplements.”

When I mentioned that someone must have at least tried to conduct the studies needed to keep colloidal silver on the market in Europe, Sultan replied:

“Natural-Immunogenics, who as you know is a large and well-known colloidal silver manufacturer based in America, also sells their product in Europe.

My understanding is that they had set out to conduct a bioavailability study in accord with EFSA requirements. But they apparently never got a final conclusive study off the ground because they couldn’t get the EFSA to cooperate with them.

The EFSA apparently failed to give them formal guidelines explaining how the study needed to be conducted in order for the results to be accepted as evidence on silver’s behalf.”

I can only surmise that Natural-Immunogenics didn’t want to spend over $100,000 conducting a bioavailability study, only to be told afterwards that their study protocols didn’t meet the EFSA’s requirements.

A news article published on the NutraIngredients.com web site back in December 2008 explains that the EFSA was apparently unhappy with the initial data submitted by Natural-Immunogenics on behalf of their “silver hydrosol” product. The EFSA appears to have kept upping the ante until the required documentation was simply too onerous to produce.

In short, it appears the EFSA didn’t deal in good faith with Natural-Immunogenics, to say the least, a sentiment echoed privately to me by other European colloidal silver vendors in regards to their own efforts.

Indeed, many European food supplements manufactures now privately complain that unfair roadblocks were put up in order to prevent supplements containing unapproved ingredients like silver from being transferred to the Positive List. In many ways, European colloidal silver vendors tell me, the deck was simply stacked against silver and other “unapproved” ingredients from the start.

Dirty Tricks

What’s more, even major European health freedom organizations such as the Alliance for Natural Health – who oppose the inclusion of colloidal silver on the banned list -- have complained that they were “not among the interests who were invited to submit comment” regarding changes to the European Commission draft regulations covering food supplements.

It was these draft regulations that ultimately resulted in the EU-wide ban on the sale of common minerals supplements such as colloidal silver.

This apparently purposeful exclusion of the Alliance for Natural Health from the public portion of the regulatory process was likely because they had, back in 2005, successfully challenged the EU Food Supplements Directive through the European Court of Justice, resulting -- much to the chagrin of the EFSA -- in some key regulatory reversals benefitting nutritional supplement manufacturers. This included getting natural sources of vitamins and minerals (such as food) eliminated from regulatory overview.

The ANH is now fighting the 2010 food supplement ban on the basis that it may well contravene EU law. And they may soon be helping EU supplement manufacturers pursue legal action against EU “health claims” regulations on the basis that they violate freedom of speech and thereby infringe on consumer welfare by preventing them from learning more about the qualities of nutritional supplements.

What the Alliance for Natural Health Says

About the European Silver Ban

We asked the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), which has been described as Europe’s foremost health freedom organization, to give us a better understanding of the colloidal silver ban. Here’s what they wrote:

Dear Steve

It is unfortunately true that silver, in all forms in food supplements, has become illegal to market in Europe from the 1st January 2010.

This is because the Food Supplements Directive (2002/46/EC) (FSD), which came into force in 2005, had a 4 year derogation phase built into it, where forms of vitamins and minerals not on the Positive List of approved forms would be allowed to be sold until 31st December 2009.

Silver is one of the forms of minerals that has been unsuccessful so far in gaining a positive approval to be allowed for ongoing legal sale and this means that all silver products should have been removed from the shelves at the beginning of this year. This is Europe-wide and not just in the UK.

Whilst we have been trying very hard to alert companies and consumers to the loss of many supplement products in 2010, we understand that there are many people who still are not aware of what is happening.

This political technique, called ‘gradualism’, is effective in lulling people into a false sense of security because the widespread bans predicted when the FSD came into force didn’t happen immediately. However, they are happening this year and there are now only 181 approved forms of vitamins and minerals for sale in Europe. All others are technically illegal.

It isn’t just silver that will be going off the shelves, there are many others too e.g. vanadium. If you’ve read the press release, then you’ll have access to the Draft Regulation via a link at the end. Here you’ll be able to view the Positive List in Annex I and Annex II (http://www.anhcampaign.org/news/anh-press-release-food-supplement-ban-in-2010-may-contravene-eu-law).

I’m not sure if you’re signed up to receive our eBlasts, but they are a good way to stay abreast of what is happening (http://www.anhcampaign.org/user/register).

The good news is that the Positive List remains permanently open so companies/manufacturers are able to make another application for silver to be added to the list. The other side of the coin, however, is that there are moves all round the world, not just in Europe, to make it difficult to sell silver as a food supplement because it directly competes with the antibiotic market. Although, the official line is that there is insufficient data regarding safety and this is a consumer protection issue!

… We don’t intend to let this one lie and hope in particular to support a manufacturer with a dossier application for silver. The application would ideally need to be completed by a manufacturer given the requirements for scientific data proving safety, efficacy and bioavailability.

I hope this helps to clarify the legislative situation regarding silver in the EU for you and we will keep our supporters posted with any changes.

Best wishes

Meleni Aldridge
Executive Coordinator

Alliance for Natural Health International

The Atrium, Curtis Road

Dorking, Surrey RH1 1XA

United Kingdom

www.anhinternational.org
www.anh-europe.org
http://www.anh-usa.org/

Additional Confirmation from the ANH

We thank Meleni Aldridge and the ANH for that great overview, and urge readers to learn more by following through on the links provided.

In a recent ANH press release, they further confirm the EU ban on numerous nutritional supplement ingredients, including silver:

The natural products industry in the UK, as well as in other EU Member States, has been asked to approve changes even before the draft Regulation amending the EU Food Supplements Directive of 2002 has been ratified in Europe. The reason given for the rush is the desire to stick to the date given in the 2002 Directive, which states that the derogation phase expires on 31 December 2009.

This means that any vitamin or mineral forms not complying with the new list of approved forms, as given in the draft Regulation as proposed by the European Commission, will be banned as of 1 January 2010.

The draft Regulation adds just 69 additional vitamin and mineral forms to the previous list of 112 forms. All other vitamin and minerals forms will be banned, this affecting hundreds of products that have been selling freely, under the derogation, in more liberal Member States such as the UK. Amongst the casualties are all food supplements containing vanadium or silver, as well as many mineral amino acid chelates.

Coming Soon to America

As ANH Director Dr. Robert Verkerk has stated:

“Europe is emerging as the epicenter of the problem when it comes to disproportionate legislation on natural products and claims as to their benefits.

But how contagious is this approach? Very, it seems.

Indeed, the push for global harmonization of European-style natural health laws is gaining serious momentum.

Now, the ultimate bastion of free speech, the USA, is seriously threatened by precisely the same process that is well underway in the European Union.

Here's a link to the draft regulations explaining which vitamin and mineral ingredients can now legally be added to foods and food supplements in the European Union. You’ll note that silver is not on the list of approved supplement ingredients:

http://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2009/tbt/eec/09_2752_00_e.pdf


Part III Coming…

In a few days to a week, I’ll be posting Part III in this series of articles on “Colloidal Silver Banned in Europe.”

In Part III, you’ll learn about a nifty little loophole in the new European law that some EU colloidal silver vendors are successfully using, for now, to continue selling colloidal silver in spite of the ban. Will the loophole last long? We’ll discuss the situation with the head of one of the largest colloidal silver vendors in Sweden, and let you know!

You’ll also learn more about the growing threat of the Codex Alimentarius laws, which constitute the “harmonization” (with emphasis on harm) of U.S. food supplement laws with European food supplement laws, and what that means to you.

And finally, you’ll learn why, if we allow U.S. nutritional supplement laws to be “harmonized” with European food supplement laws and colloidal silver sales are banned here, also, there’s one significant stumbling block that could actually thwart the ability of U.S. colloidal silver vendors from using the same loophole European colloidal silver vendors are presently attempting to use in order to keep colloidal silver on the market.

As you’ll see in the upcoming Part III of this series, it’s all the more reason to fight against the growing move to “harmonize” U.S. food supplement laws with European food supplement laws!

So stay tuned…

And in the meantime, stay healthy!

Spencer Jones

Helpful Links:

Colloidal Silver Kills Viruses

Colloidal Silver Cures MRSA

Make Your Own Colloidal Silver

The Colloidal Silver Secrets Video

The New Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator

The Ultimate Colloidal Silver Manual

Unique Nutritional Supplements

Underground Publications that Could Save Your Life

The Authoritative Guide to Vaccine Legal Exemptions

Secrets of Natural Healing blog

Colloidal Silver Secrets blog